A varied week

Last week, the night after hearing the news about my grandfather, I came down with a cold. Luckily I already had Monday off because Maneesh was visiting so it was an opportune day to try and get better and allow myself to be a bit emotional. I had to go back to work on Tuesday because of several commitments, including a team event I had organised for that evening, so up to Northampton I went, ready to slog through a week of work with a cold.

I struggled through Tuesday and woke up on Wednesday to call in sick. At first I thought I would just stay in the Northampton hotel, and maybe go into the office in the afternoon. All that changed when I got a call from Maneesh at 10am from Heathrow airport...."I can't find my passport". Groan. He had already locked himself out of the flat, assuming he wouldn't be returning so I showered, packed and was back in Wimbledon by 1:30pm to let him in and see if his passport was laying around. After checking all the usual and unusual places, it wasn't anywhere to be seen.

He spent the afternoon getting his parents to fax his birth certificate, filling out the emergency passport forms, and making an appointment at the Embassy for the next morning to sort all this out. I spent the afternoon taking a nap and shopping for an impromptu dinner party when I realised that Maneesh would be staying an extra night, Vicky would be home that evening and James would be over as well.

We had a really nice evening with a simple meal and several wines and I was starting to pull out of my cold, or so I thought. Maneesh successfully escaped the country on Thursday, and I went up to Northampton for just a few hours of email admin before returning to London. I took another sick day for most of Friday although in reality I went into the office for monthly meetings and a bit of socialising.

James and I jetted (is there a better word to use when you take the Eurostar instead of flying?) off to Paris directly after work on Friday for a fantastic weekend of very little rain, lots of quality time and delicious restaurants/wine. I had a slow start to the week on Monday, not getting up till 10am or out of the house until 11:30am. I felt sluggish all day and had an early night with a bit of TV at the hotel.

Now, it's Tuesday. I have two weeks left of work, I have finally secured a replacement resource for me (phew!) and I am really struggling to focus! I've been so busy during all my weekends lately that I haven't done all the extra organising I would normally have done to prepare for my travels, but I hope to have a bit of time to catch up this Sunday on personal admin, including my extra nerdy household inventory which will help me work out what will go to whom while I'm away.

I'm looking for good homes for all my kitchen stuff, which I'm planning to pawn off on James as much as possible (he just bought a new flat, with a kitchen(ette) being installed in early October). Also, any of my larger furniture and kitchen spices/pantry items will go to Victoria who has just bought a house (in escrow at the moment). And then there is the wine collection, for which I have no shortage of volunteers! I'm resigned to getting some sort of storage, but I am aiming to get one as small as possible, just enough to fit my work suits, some extra clothes, my wine books and other bits and pieces. As I did two years ago when I moved to the UK, I'm actually quite looking forward to paring down to basics and building it back up again next year as I need to.